One former NBA player who had tons of talent but never managed to put it together for an extended period of time was Rasheed Wallace.
Wallace, who entered the NBA as the No. 4 overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, went on to become a four-time All-Star and one-time NBA champion.
However, according to NBA veteran Andre Iguodala, Wallace could have done much more. In fact, Iguodala went as far as to say that Wallace would have been better than Giannis Antetokounmpo in today’s NBA.
“Rasheed Wallace probably could have been top five player in the league for a 10-year stretch,” he said. “He just chose, ‘I’ll do my thing over here.’ He was shooting 3s from half court. No, he was shooting half-court shots left-handed and right-handed. If Rasheed Wallace played in modern-day basketball today, if he played in our league today, he’d be the top five player in the league. He’d be better than Giannis, and I love Giannis.”
It’s a pretty dramatic statement to make, but there is no doubt that Wallace was a player who came well before his time. At 6-foot-10 and 225 pounds, Wallace had the frame of a traditional big man in the NBA. However, the level of finesse that existed in his game was something that few big men had displayed up until that point.
Wallace was able to shoot from all over the court, and as Iguodala mentioned, he had quite the stroke from deep. In fact, during his era, Wallace was somewhat of an indication of where the league was heading. Signs of positionless basketball were already taking shape, and Wallace was undoubtedly one of those signs.
If Wallace had perhaps come into the NBA a decade later, his versatile approach to the game likely would have been utilized to the max. With all that in mind, Wallace probably has very few regrets about his own career.
